Tavares Library Gets Cash And Green Light To Expand

The Council Took The Project Off The Shelf By Matching A Grant To More Than Double The Space.

March 1, 1997|By Robin Pollack, Sentinel Correspondent

TAVARES — It's official: Tavares will get a bigger and better library, now that city leaders have decided to chip in cash for the project.

City Council members voted unanimously this week to accept a $400,000 state grant and match it with city money to expand the Tavares Public Library on Caroline Street.

The expanded library will be more than twice the size of the current library. It will boast more computers and access to the Internet, additional books and reference materials, study rooms, a conference room and more work space for employees, said head librarian JoAnne McIntosh.

''Tavares is a growing community that needs a bigger library,'' McIntosh said Friday. ''This will provide us with a really fine library and teaching center. We're very happy about this.''

Construction on the addition, which will be adjacent to the current library and next to the city's civic center, is expected to begin in early 1998, McIntosh said.

Thursday's City Council vote removed the library expansion project from limbo.

The city was notified last summer that it was eligible to receive the grant. However, city leaders had delayed voting on the project, because they were worried that contributing $400,000 to match the grant would take too big a bite out of city coffers. Meanwhile, the deadline to accept the award - or lose it - was rapidly approaching.

The project got the OK Thursday after city leaders received a five-year budget projection that indicates the city can afford to expand the 4,000-square-foot library, which has been cramped.

''We really need to move forward on expanding the library,'' City Council member Pat Smallwood said earlier this week. The expanded library will have 9,000 square feet.

Some of the expansion plans have been changed. Constructing a second floor atop the library had originally been considered, but was scrapped because it would have required expensive items such as elevators. As a result, the library will expand out instead of up, McIntosh said.

Tavares Public Library, housed in a brick building, was built in 1973. Nick Jones and Associates, a Clermont architectural firm that also designed the new Tavares City Hall, is designing the expanded library.